This invention relates to apparatus for cooking food articles and, more particularly, to apparatus for cooking food articles with a heated cooking medium, such as water, vegetable oil, animal fat, shortening, and the like.
In the past, various prior-art apparatus have been provided for cooking food articles with a heated cooking medium. Most of these prior-art apparatus have required that the food articles to be cooked by them be at least partially immersed in the heated cooking medium. Many of these prior-art apparatus have required that the chamber of the apparatus in wich the food articles are cooked by the cooking medium be a pressure vessel to enable cooking of the food articles at elevated pressures. Some of these prior-art apparatus utilize steam, rather than water, as the heated cooking medium and thus require input energy both for heating (1 BTU per 1.degree. F. per 1 lb. of water) for first heating water to its boiling point (212.degree. F.) and then providing the latent heat of vaporization (970 BTU per pound of 212.degree. F. water) necessary to convert the 212` F. water into steam.
In this present era of mounting demands for energy and diminishing supplies thereof (and, consequently, rising costs therefor), it is, of course, highly desirable to reduce the energy required to achieve the cooking of food articles. And, the novel apparatus that is provided in accordance with the present invention does so to a vast degree, as compared with the aforenoted prior-art apparatus, while also reducing the time required to achieve cooking of the food articles. Furthermore, the need for a pressure chamber and the safety hazards and costs associated therewith are also eliminated. Still further, the amount of the cooking medium that is required to cook the food articles can be greatly reduced, since they need not be immersed therein.
The novel apparatus that is provided in accordance with the present invention is somewhat similar to the old apparatus shown, described and claimed in British Pat. No. 621,821 which was published in the late 1940s, in that both apparatus cook food articles by directing a pressurized spray of heated liquid cooking medium onto the food articles that are supported in the cooking chamber, rather than by immersing them therein. However, the novel apparatus of the present invention is vastly improved over that of the aforenoted British Patent in that, among other things, the apparatus of the present invention comprises pump means that can spray the heated pressurized liquid cooking medium onto the food articles to be cooked thereby at pressures (in a range between 10 and 70 p.s.i.g.) much greater than the pressure (3 p.s.i.g.) specified for that purpose by the aforenoted British Patent. At least in part, these much higher pressure sprays of heated liquid cooking medium, which, in turn, greatly improve the heat transfer capability of the apparatus of the present invention over that of the prior-art apparatus of the aforenoted British Patent, are made possible by the unique alignment of the first and second sprayer means of the apparatus of the present invention in a common plane with one another such that the food articles which are supported within the cooking chamber are clamped between the opposed high pressure sprays discharged therefrom.